


Clawed

by nwspaprtaxis



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Animal Attack, Caves, Cuts, Dean Does Research, Drabble Collection, Gen, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Lacerations, Libraries, Protective Bobby Singer, Protective Sam Winchester, Research, Season/Series 01, Smart Dean Winchester, Smart Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-15
Updated: 2010-05-11
Packaged: 2017-12-13 01:02:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/818119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nwspaprtaxis/pseuds/nwspaprtaxis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a reason why Dean hates hunting in the woods... and this latest case is proof-positive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lamiajade](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=lamiajade).



> **_A/N:_** Originally posted to FF.Net in response to the vast interest in the story surrounding the drabble I had written for the 1/24/2010 E/O Challenge Word [Bind](http://archiveofourown.org/works/821380/chapters/1556805), I have decided to expand it into a longer verse. I have a like-hate relationship with this piece - I can't decide if it's okay or if I loathe it and I've totally reached my limit with it - and need to post before it drives me insane. This one is for **lamiajade** who is quite possibly the biggest sweetie ever and who was the first person to ask for an expansion. S1-verse. I imagine this one taking place some time after _01x12 FAITH_ , but before _01x14 NIGHTMARE_ , around the time of _01x13 ROUTE 666_ but in either direction of that episode.
> 
> As always, a kazillion thanks and a huge smish to my wickedly fantastic Beta, **mad_server** , for the endless support and editing. 
> 
> _**Disclaimer:**_ Do not own. Am not making a profit. I'm just simply having fun with their psyches and returning them slightly more battered to Kripke and Co. and all that Yada Yada.

Dean rocks his chair back on two legs. “You almost done?” Catching sight of something on Sam’s computer screen, he lets his chair thump to the floor, leaning around the carrel partition. “Wait… Sam, go back. What’s that?”

Sam clicks on the green left-pointing arrow and an article pops up. “Just a mauling… in South Dakota.” He shrugs, scrolling.

Dean scans the write-up. “You’re a hunter, Sammy. When has a mauling ever been _just a mauling_?” He points at a paragraph, sitting back smugly. “Rock-’n’-roll. It’s ours.”

He twists and grins disarmingly at the young reference librarian gawking at them.


	2. Chapter 2

Three days later, they’re holed up in a seedy South Dakota motel room.

“So what d’you figure’ll kill this fugly?” Dean casually takes a bite out of his pizza.

“There’s a couple possibilities, including fire and electricity...”

Dean blanches.

Sam flips open the journal. “But it’s definitely not Rawhead or Wendigo. Maybe a Black Dog? I’m thinking bullets.”

“This is my ass we’re talking about.” Dean folds the entire slice into his mouth. “Which will it be?”

“Uh… all three?”

Dean shoots a death-glare.

Sam scans the printout. “It’s corporeal. And animal in nature. Which means…”

“Bullets. Awesome.” Dean grins.


	3. Chapter 3

They’ve only been walking through the woods for ten minutes when Dean feels his sixth, hunter sense prickle coldly along his spine.

“Sam,” he breathes into the silence, “stop. We’re being tracked.”

“Dean?” Sam halts in his tracks.

Dean suddenly whirls, instinctively pulling the .45 automatic from the waistband of his jeans, and fires into the forest.

“De—” Sam doesn’t even have time to get the word out when he’s tackled, flying into a tree and falling unconscious to the ground.

“Hey!” Dean cries out, crouching into a defensive position, gun in hand. Then something crashes into him. And nothing.


	4. Chapter 4

“So… um…” Sam looks up, studying the ropes tying his hands above his head, seeing sky. “We’re in a bit of a bind.”

“Ya think, college boy?” Dean bucks, smashing his back into Sam’s.

Sam ignores the sarcasm. “We’re in some kind of well…”

“Yahtzee. Figured as much while you were in la-la land.”

Dean pauses, panting.

“D’you know what we need?” Thrashing. More back-slams. “Lassie.”

“ _Lassie_?” Sam snorts, flexing his wrists, gradually loosening the rope. “What the hell’s Lassie gonna do?”

“I dunno. She always saved Timmy...”

Dean’s words are cut off by a low, feral growl.

“Oh, shit.”


	5. Chapter 5

“Distract it.” Dean hears Sam’s whisper from behind him. “I’m almost out…”

 _Great. Diversion time_. “OY! Lassie!” Dean calls out. “Over here! Fugly!”

The growl is lower, angrier, as the doglike creature circles them slowly, preparing for a kill.

“You want me, come and get me.”

The dog launches itself at him, claws drawn, and they catch him in the gut at the same time he lands a well-aimed kick on the dog’s nose.

The dog reels, shaking its head, then stands on its hind legs, lengthening and growing, morphing, until it’s taller than even Sam. _Oh, fuck_.

“Um… Sammy?”


	6. Chapter 6

“Sammy…” Dean breathes. “We’re in trouble.”

“What did you do?”

“Pissed ’im off…”

“Crap.”

“That about sums it up.” Dean doesn’t take his eyes off the tall, bulky figure standing less than five feet away. He takes a slow, measured pant, feeling hot blood pouring from his gut, muscles burning. “Work faster.”

A second later, he feels Sam slip free, and, out of the corner of his eye, sees Sam pivot, leveling a gun, and fires a bulls-eye of a shot. The world suddenly warps, and he blinks, missing the moment dog-thing incinerates; bullet’s impact turning it into ashes.


	7. Chapter 7

“Damn. It clawed you good,” Sam hisses as he cuts his brother loose.

 _Thank you, Captain Obvious_ , Dean thinks, but before he can verbalize anything, he’s released and he falls.

There’s a flare of _whitehotfuckagony_ and everything goes black.

**::: ::: :::**

Sam’s suddenly left holding 175 pounds of pure deadweight, tacky blood coating his hands. Almost before he can do anything, Dean groans, blinking.

“Hey, I gotcha.” Half-supporting, half-lugging his brother, Sam makes his way towards the single entryway.

Six minutes later, by Dean’s watch, they’re outside.

Another fifteen or so, they glimpse the Impala.

At the car, Dean keels over again.


	8. Chapter 8

Twenty miles down the road, Sam’s weighing their options, _hospital or motel_ , flipping a mental coin as they eat pavement, stealing glances at his mostly-unconscious passenger, gauging injuries, when Dean’s cell rings.

“’Top groping me, dude…” Dean mumbles weakly as Sam fishes out the phone from his brother’s jeans pocket and flips it open.

“Hey, Bobby! It’s Sam. Yeah, we got it. Look,” a swallow, sudden thought. “Dean’s hurt. We… we need a place to crash.”

Bobby’s answer brings instant relief.

Hanging up, Sam makes a wide U-turn, tires squealing, and heads for the safest place he knows.


	9. Chapter 9

Half-hour later, when they pull into Singer’s Auto Salvage Yard, Bobby takes over.

“Jesus,” Bobby curses as Sam fireman-carries Dean’s limp, unconscious form into the house. “You call that hurt?”

Sam freezes, stiffens.

Gentler: “Don’t worry, boy. He’s had worse. Put him on the table.”

Dean’s white, still, as Sam obeys.

“That’s gonna need stitches,” he states the obvious and goes to prep.

**::: ::: :::**

It takes fourteen stitches to close up the shallow, superficial gap across his belly. And another ten for the one along his ribs.

Bobby methodically washes blood from his hands. “You gonna tell me what went down?”


	10. Chapter 10

It’s nighttime when Dean comes to. The room’s dark and he’s covered with a soft quilt, lying in a bed that’s way too comfortable to belong in a motel or a hospital.

“’Bout time, ya idjit,” a gruff voice says somewhere to his left. “Sam told me everything. Not the worst you’ve ever done; but still up there on the crazy-stupid scale…”

“Worked, though,” Dean wheezes. Smirks.

“That it did.” Bobby enters his line of sight, Gatorade in hand.

Dean manages several pulls on the plastic, loop-the-loop straw before he’s forced to quit, groaning softly.

“Git some sleep, ya fool.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **_A/N2:_** **kalliel** wrote [What The Thunder Said](http://kalliel.livejournal.com/164782.html), the remix to this fic. It's SO good and SO gorgeous. **kalliel** took the fragments and made it into a complete, seamless narrative, throwing in her own spin (Visions! Case-Fic! Native American Legends! Making Bobby fit into the canon of early S1!) and expanded it far beyond my wildest concept for this fic. GO GIVE IT LOVE!


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